Description

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James Friedman, a retired philosophy professor living in Houston, receives an invitation from a woman, identifying herself only as Shekhinah, who claims she was once God. She wants to talk to him about her decision to abandon heaven for earth. Accepting the invitation, Friedman encounters a tall, ebony-skinned, twenty-three-year-old, same-gender-loving woman who is wearing a ""Black Lives Matter"" t-shirt. She tells Friedman a creation story about a loving God who, at the moment of creation, fourteen billion years ago, gave up power over the world out of respect for human freedom. This view of God is similar to one Friedman has expounded. According to Shekhinah, to God's horror and surprise, countless human beings have misused their freedom to cause massive injustice--bigotry, genocide, cruelty, etc.--and to put the earth itself in peril. Powerless as God, Shekhinah asserts that the Creator could make a difference in the world only by becoming a human being--which meant the death of God. God, she claims, entered the world as a Black, Same-Gender-Loving Woman to divinely affirm three often disrespected identities. For reasons she reveals, Shekhinah, now a socially engaged secular Buddhist, chose Houston as the place to partner with others and begin her project of saving a damaged planet and achieving justice for all human beings.

About the Author

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David B. Myers, retired professor of philosophy, is author of Marx and Nietzsche: The Reflections and Transcripts of a 19th Century Female Journalist, New Soviet Thinking and US Nuclear Policy, and many articles in professional philosophy journals. After retirement, he created the Center for Interfaith Projects, an organization that promotes interfaith dialogue. Practicing both Judaism and Buddhism, Myers belongs to a Reform Synagogue and a Buddhist Sangha. He is currently working on a book entitled Jewish Buddhist Dual Belonging and the Nature of Religion.